


staring into an abyss

by janie_tangerine



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Genre: Book: The Drawing of the Three, Language, M/M, Written in 2009, heavy canon references, heroin withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:33:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Then he just goes and asks Roland who he is one day, out of mere exasperation and feeling like his stomach has been turned inside out, and the answer is </i>your destiny<i> and it’s fucking terrifying.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	staring into an abyss

Staring at Roland is like staring into an abyss. That’s pretty much everything that Eddie has figured out by this point and sincerely, it’s more than enough. Because the problem is that figuring things out when the Clint Eastwood duplicate who started talking to you in your head, sort of saved your life and then brought you to another fucking _world_ is currently feverish and you’re gone cold turkey is, if you please, kind of a task. At least he has pills to give Roland; he thinks he’d kill for some methadone right now, except that he doesn’t think that he’d ever find it in this blasted place. This does _not_ look like Edgar Rice Borroughs and surely not like the place he could find bare-breasted girls in, not that he’d have the strength to come out to one if there was.

It’s kind of unnerving. It’d probably be even more unnerving if he wasn’t throwing up every two hours and if aspirin wasn’t good for withdrawal. Fuck, what he’d give for some methadone. _Famous people in rehab don’t know how good they have it_ , he thinks as he feeds Roland pills, shoots those not-so-funny jokes of lobsters, cooks them and fights to keep their meat inside his stomach. He doesn’t know what he should do, he doesn’t know why he’s doing what he does and more than that, he doesn’t know the guy he’s sharing space with 24/7. Except that, as established, said guy is the only reason you’re still alive somewhere to begin with.

So, in the beginning, he snaps a lot. He shouts and complains and if Roland makes any kind of half attempted try at making him feel better he rejects it; after all he has to lash it out on someone and it’s not like this place is full of options, if you don’t count the lobstrosities (and those don’t really count as a crowd he could have a talk with, especially considering the language barrier).

Then he just goes and asks Roland who he is one day, out of mere exasperation and feeling like his stomach has been turned inside out, and the answer is _your destiny_ and it’s fucking terrifying. See, Eddie never had much use for the concept of destiny. Also because when it looks like your destiny is living for a heroin fix, well, that’s quite the crap for destiny and it’s better to think that destiny doesn’t exist. It always was a black hole for Eddie, instead of a concept. Roland throws it back in his face with a force that shouldn’t really be allowed to a fucking mere whisper and sincerely, considering that for Eddie Roland is a black hole himself it really isn’t much help. But that sentence creeps under his skin and stays there. He thinks about it when it isn’t time to feed Roland pills or to shoot the lobster things or when he’s shaking so bad that thought isn’t an option; he doesn’t know why but it sounds like the truest thing he’s ever heard his whole life.

The next time Roland’s hand reaches his wrist, he doesn’t shake it away but just sighs and lets it be.

It’s not really much after that he finds himself with one of those guns pointed to his head and later he will tell Roland that he didn’t do it because he has just one pair of pants first and the real reason after, but the truth is that he doesn’t try to find a fake reason as he’s sitting there with a finger on the trigger.

He goes through all the pros in his head and they sound like good enough pros, but the first con is _if I do this he’s as good as dead_ and it’s strange, so strange that such a man has to rely on him of everyone to survive, but it’s the honest truth and somehow it feels somewhat flattering and then he realizes he has only this pair of jeans with him. He puts the gun away and shakes his head. There are people who need people to need them, and fuck Barbra Straisand, he’s one. Wasn’t he in that mess to begin with because he had needed Henry to need him? _Smart, Eddie, real smart_ , he thinks as he gets closer to Roland’s sleeping form and lets his hand rest on the gunslinger’s shoulder for a little more than what one would consider friendly. He’s still feverish and the pills are almost over; great. Now maybe if _he_ ended up alone in this godforsaken beach maybe he’d pull the trigger alright.

The day after he doesn’t shove Roland’s hand away either. Not when it reaches his wrist. Not when with a considerable effort he finds himself as close as they were when Roland told him he was his destiny, the stench more or less the same, the tension definitely of another kind. There’s a second or two in which their eyes meet and steel, feverish blue pierces through his head; it’s a question of moving a bit in the right direction and then kissing Roland is like jumping into that unknown abyss, except that isn’t jumping right into the unknown what he did the second he answered yes when Roland had asked whether he was coming? Roland doesn’t taste of anything he can recognize, maybe because he’s not from his world, not really; it isn’t even good and it isn’t just sour breath, but it’s alright because Eddie knows he doesn’t really taste that better anyway. Roland’s lips are thin and insisting despite his body’s weakness and Eddie feels suddenly on fire, his tongue meeting Roland’s; it’s strangely slow and almost gentle and that’s another thing that Eddie feels should be different, but then he decides he’s thinking too much and draws Roland closer.

He shivers when a hand which lacks fingers cradles the back of his head, the skin rough against the skin of his neck; it feels almost too intimate and not anything he’d have associated with Roland. Nothing to say; what he doesn’t know is a lot, but if this is filling the blanks, then so be it.

End. 


End file.
